MOOL CHAND MOTI LAL Vs. RAM KISHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been referred to a Full Bench because it raises several difficult points of law. The facts of the case briefly are these: The appellants before us obtained a simple money decree against one Lalman. In execution of the decree the appellants caused the attachment of certain immovable properties. Respondents 1 and 2 preferred an objection to the attachment on the ground that one-half of one of the properties and a whole shop belonged to themselves and not being the property of the judgment-debtor, had been improperly attached. Their objection failed in the execution department and thereupon they instituted the suit out of which this appeal has arisen, to obtain a declaration that the property the attachment of which had been objected to was their own property and could not be attached and sold in execution of the decree obtained against Lalman. To this suit, not only were the decree-holders made party but also Lalman was impleadcd. Lalman did not enter appearance. The decree-holders defended the suit. The suit was heard on the merits by the learned Munsif, it having been valued at Rs. 1,342 which was the amount then due on the decree in execution against Lalman. The plaintiffs who lost their suit went to the Court of the District Judge and there they urged that the property involved in the suit was really worth Rs. 20,000 and the Munsif had no jurisdiction to hear the suit. The learned Subordinate Judge who beard the appeal was of opinion that the fact that a suit of large valuation had been heard by a Munsif was in itself a ground for holding that the plaintiffs had been prejudiced by the trial. The learned Subordinate Judge accordingly reversed the decree of the first Court and directed that the plaint be returned to the plaintiffs for presentation to the proper Court. Against this order this first appeal from order has been filed.

(2.) The questions that were raised during the hearing of the appeal before a Division Bench may be framed as follows: (1) What, in the circumstances of the case, would be the true valuation of the suit? (2) If the valuation be larger than the pecuniary jurisdiction of the Munsif, whether Section 11, Suits Valuation Act (7 of 1887), precluded the lower appellate Court from interfering with the decree except on the ground of the disposal of the suit on the meirts being prejudicially affected? (3) Whether the plaintiffs were estopped from pleading that the true valuation of the suit was more than the value put by them in the plaint? We take the several points raised one after another.

(3.) On the first point, namely, the true valuation, the cases decided in this Court have almost uniformly taken the view that it is the amount of the decree that determines the value of the suit, where the property involved is of larger value than the amount due under the decree. These cases further lay down that where the decretal amount is large, but the market value of the property involved is smaller, it is the market value of the property that determines the value of the suit. One of these cases is Khetra V/s. Mumtaz Begam (1916) 38 All 72 which followed the opinion expressed by their Lordships of the Privy Council in Radha Kunwar V/s. Reoti Singh AIR 1916 PC 18 and another Privy Council case in Phul Kumari V/s. Ghanshyam Misra (1908) 35 Cal 202. A still later case is Anandi Kunwar V/s. Ram Niranjan Das AIR 1918 All 324. These cases lay down the propositions of law in the manner stated above. There is an earlier case in Dwarka Das v. Rameshar Prasad (1895) 17 All 69, where it was mentioned that in a similar suit, if the judgment-debtor be made a party, the value of the property claimed would determine the value of the suit. This view however has not been maintained in the two later cases quoted above, on the ground that in most of the cases, the judgment-debtor would be a party pro forma and not as a person disputing the claim of the plaintiffs. At p. 74 of the report Khetra V/s. Mumtaz Begam (1916) 38 All 72 their Lordships say: No doubt she (the plaintiff) made her husband a party to the suit, but she asked for no relief against him and did not allege any cause of action which would entitle her to sue him. Apparently her husband was only made a formal defendant to the suit.